Fear, Stupidity and Entrepreneurs

90% of entrepreneurs fail. Scary huh? Makes you want to hide behind your desk at your bland 9-5 grabbing the pay scraps your employer sprinkles on you in return for allowing them to abuse you daily. So if so many fail, why bother? Why would you be any different? Well lets look at why they fail.

The first mistake most make is assuming that their passion is universal. “Man, I love collecting Fat Elvis velvet paintings. Everybody will love having nationwide access to Hound Dog portraits!” As much as the King is awesome this concept may not have legs. You have to go out and do market research. When I started French Fry Heaven, I did weeks worth of research. You have to start in books and the Internet to see what you can find about the viability. Incidentally, if you think you’ve come up with a totally original idea, get over it, you didn’t.

The next step is to bounce your idea of others. I started with supportive friends and family. You want people that love you first, because you don’t want to start with people that practice dream killing before your ideas fully formed.
Next, when I was confident, I reached out to industry pros. Truly successful people are all to happy to talk with you and help you out, so long as you stay honest. Tell them you want their brains and not their money so they can let their guards down; then DO NOT ask them for money! Listen to them, change your concept where their ideas are better. Don’t be wedded to every detail in your concept, because some of it sucks. However, you do have to have some points on which you have to be convicted. It’s your idea.

With French Fry Heaven I had seen the massive success of French Fry Stand internationally. I knew the COGS were outstanding and through research I knew the popularity of the product. I researched customer needs and wants and created a menu to meet that. We researched distribution, equipment, product, images, design, costs and even religious implications of our marketing.

Then I decided to move! I have heard from so many people how they had thought of a similar concept, but they didn’t move! Most people have good ideas and many do the research, but so many of those get distracted by their day to day, paralysis by analysis or just the lack of guts to step out and take the risk. Be it a French Fry Heaven franchise or your own deal, once you have 80% confidence it’s a good idea, DO IT!